Experimentation Process

Bobby grinding the sugar cane waste

shredded examples of each material

Adding liquid latex to shredded bagasse

Adding wheat paste to the rice hull

Flattened wet pieces of sugar cane waste

Placing the material in the jig with layers of wood glue

Compressed sugar cane waste in the jig

Variety of labeled experiments

Class discussion of our experiments

     In the past week, I have been trying lots of different ways of working with the materials are provided with.(sugarcane waste, bagasse, rice straw, rice hall) In the course of this time, I have started to feel more comfortable about working with them, learning more about their strengths and weaknesses with every experiment I have conducted.
    In the first tests, I mixed them with plasticine and also tried to use the sugar hull as a filler inside a folded piece of canvas cloth. With these experiments I realized that it would be beneficial to grind or shred the materials in order to have an even and dense mix, if I was going to put together any kind of adhesive with the raw material.
   So in the second part of the exploration process, me and Bobby tried our best to make these materials as powdery as possible.(Using our hands, scissors, metal rolling pins, mortar and pestle,..) And mixed them with liquid latex, rubber, wood glue, and wheat paste. This time the outcomes were much better. The pieces stuck together and showed no sigh of the adhesive. But the problem this time is the structural quality of them. They are all flexible and have a tendency to break with pressure.
   So the next step would be mixing and matching the materials with different types of adhesives and processes of playing with the material properties. Hopefully some of the combinations will work surprisingly well.